Combined letter sheet and envelope



Fig.3.

John W. Public 7843 cenrer St.

Washington. DC, I

C. Z. CASE ET AL Filed April 22, 1958 COMBINED LETTER SHEET AND ENVELOPE March 28,1939.

6 8 whm my aQN m CUE /m Z M/wm 3 am r CC Y Patented Mar. 28, 1939 UNITED STATES 2.152.135 common LETTER snss'r AND ENVELOPE Charles Z. Caseand Carter J. Hughey, Rochester, N. Y., asslgnors to Eastman Kodak Company,

Rochester, N. Y., a corporation of New Jersey Application April 22, 1938, Serial No. 203,592,

1 Claim.

This invention relates to sheets of letter paper so arranged that the sheet may be folded and used for a mailing envelope.

One of the objects of our invention is to provide a simple and inexpensive letter sheet which also serves as an envelope when folded up and properly pasted together. Another object of our invention is to provide a sheet which can be rapidly made in large quantities and which can be inexpensively prepared for folding and sealing. Another object of our invention is to provide a sheet with heavily printed areas serving to limit the area of the sheet which may be used for hearing the letter and at the same time to serve as marginal lines through which the ends of the folded sheet may be severed. to open the letter.

Still another object of our invention is to provide a letter sheet made of paper which is substantially opaque so that written or printed matter cannot be read through the sheet and at the same time to make the sheet slightly translucent so that extremely heavily printed areas may just appear through the reverse side of the sheet to indicate the areas which should be severed for unfolding the letter. from the following specification, the novel features being particularly pointed out in the claims at the end thereof.

Coming now to the' drawing wherein like reference characters denote like parts throughout:

Fig. 1 is a front plan view of a combined letter sheet and envelope constructed in accordance with and embodying a preferred form of our invention.

Fig. 2 shows the sheet of Fig. l which has been folded and sealed up illustrating the rear of the envelope formed from the folded sheet.

Fig. 3 shows the front of the envelope formed from the folded sheet with one edge partially severed for opening the envelope.

Fig. 4 shows the sheet with the edges severed in an unfolded position.

In accordance with our invention, we provide a combined letter sheet and envelope which may be made of a substantial sheet of paper which is substantially opaque. By this term, we mean that the sheet of paper is sufficiently opaque to obscure the ordinary writing in pen and ink or the ordinary typewriting, but at the same time include a sheet which is very slightly translucent so that heavily printed areas may appear through the paper.

As indicated in Fig. 1, the sheet I may consist of a sheet of paper having small adhesive coated areas 2 down each of the lateral edges Other objects will appear of the sheet. Inside of these adhesive coated areas are heavily printed marginal bands 3 extending parallel to the edges of the sheet and spaced therefrom a short distance so as not to cover the adhesive coated areas 2. These heavily coated areas are preferably made of a solid black pigment, although special designs may be used, if desired. However, these areas should be suf-. ficiently heavy to show through the sheet so that when the sheet has been written upon, folded up and the adhesive edges 2 have been moistened so that the sheet may be folded into an envelope, the heavily printed areas may appear through the paper as faint bands or hnes, as indicated in Fig. 2.

We also prefer to provide lines, such as 5, which indicate where the sheet should be folded.

It should be noticed from Fig. 1 that the sheet is entirely free from any transverse adhesive coated areas. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, with the sheet coated with'adhesive and heavily printed, as indicated in Fig. 1, with pairs of parallel stripes, it is a simple and inexpensive matter to adhesively coat and print the sheet because this may be done by means of a rotary press coating long strips of paper which may be later chopped in the desired lengths for letter sheets. Moreover, it has a second and very material advantage in that when the envelope has been folded up and sealed, it is .only necessary to cut off the extreme edges of the envelope, as indicated in Fig, 3, to unfold the sheet, as indicated in Fig. 4, for reading. The edges may either be cut off by hand or by machine, this latter being of particular advantage in the case of unsealing large numbers of these combined letters and envelopes at one time. Where this is done, a series of envelopes can be passed through machines which simultaneously out off both edges at once.

In the specification and claims, where we refer to written matter or areas to be written upon, it is to be understood that this term includes not only handwriting, but typewriting, printing or other means of placing messages upon the sheet.

What we claim as our invention and desire to be secured by Letters Patent of the United States is:

A combined letter sheet and envelope comprising a letter sheet bearing an area to be written upon, spaced parallel bands bordering the lateral sides of said area and spaced from the latmemes sheet free from transverse edhesive coated that the positions of the heavily printed areas lines enclbeing adepted,to be folded with thewritten area inside and sealed elong the entire laterally adhesive coated edges. whereby the? sheet may also servees an envelope, the lateral perallei bands including heavily printed areas. said letter sheet comprising paper normally opaque to writing but translucent to the extent v are perceptible from the opposite side of the sheet,

whereby the position for severing the. ends of the folded sheet maybe vieible from the folded and 

